Rocking Seats Look for Role

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Rocking Seats Look for Role
In Motion: Dan and Alison Jamele with their company’s movable seats at MediaMation’s facility in Torrance.

Theaters in Japan, Mexico, Columbia and now China have all installed seats, made by Torrance’s MediaMation Inc., that move and shake along with the action in blockbuster films.

But while the company is doing good business in foreign markets, back home in the movie mecca of Southern California – indeed, in all of the United States – its seats can be found in just one theater, and that’s in the Ventura County city of Oxnard.

MediaMation hopes to change its fortunes in America, but there are obstacles to overcome before its MX4D technology – which enhances movies with wind and water blasts, fog, smoke, motion and other synchronized effects, but comes at a premium price – can take off here as it has abroad.

“We expect a big-screen TV in every home and have lived through a lot of new developments,” MediaMation President Alison Jamele said of U.S. theatergoers. “The Asian and Latin American markets never had this kind of entertainment and now, especially with the rising middle class in Asia, there’s a hunger there to be the first to try new things.”

And hunger could be one of the factors preventing more U.S. theater owners from investing in seats from MediaMation and others that make so-called 4-D theater systems. Tim Kennelly, who has spent his career working on such immersive technologies for theme parks and movie theaters, said it might all come down to spilled popcorn.

“Movie theater owners in this country have told me they don’t like the motion seats because people sitting in them buy fewer concessions, thinking they will spill their drinks and popcorn – and concessions is where the owners make their money,” said Kennelly, director of special projects for Fountain Valley’s Moving iMage Technologies, which designs products for the motion picture industry.

Americans, too, he said, might simply be turned off by the intensity of seeing a 4-D movie in a way audiences abroad aren’t.

“In those foreign markets, the motion is seen as all part of the exciting customer experience for these blockbuster movies,” he said. “But some of us here think there is an overkill in 4-D, that it’s intrudes upon the enjoyment of the movie. If I wanted to ride a rollercoaster, I’d go to a theme park.”

Limited appeal

Alison Jamele, who worked in TV production, and her husband, Dan, a recording engineer, co-founded MediaMation in 1991 and started out creating interactive attractions for museums, theme parks, shopping malls and tourist attractions, including motion simulator rides.

Since 2010, the company has been working on bringing its technical innovations to the cinema market, and claims its 4-D systems are easy to install and more environmentally friendly than those made by rivals. The moving seats are made at the company’s factory in Torrance.

The seat-driven special effects in a 4-D film typically only kick in for 20 percent to 30 percent of the movie – usually big action scenes – and are meticulously programmed by MediaMation, in consultation with the movie studios, to sync with the on-screen action.

Upcoming titles that will be released in MediaMation’s 4-D format include “Tomorrowland”; “Poltergeist”; “Mad Max: Fury Road”; and “San Andreas,” an earthquake disaster epic set in Los Angeles.

While the company has had more success abroad so far, recently installing a 100-seat theater in China and building three in Japan, the Jameles are confident that American audiences will soon catch on and expansion will follow at home.

“The target demographic is 16 to 35,” Alison Jamele said. “That’s an audience that wants stimulation and we can certainly provide that with this exciting technology.”

So far, MediaMation seats can only be found in the United States in a 100-seat theater at Oxnard’s Plaza Stadium Cinemas 14, which was opened last year by Santa Rosa Entertainment Group.

Boston bound

But the company is encouraged by signs that others in America might be willing to take the plunge. Major chain National Amusements Inc. of Dedham, Mass., which operates more than 1,000 theaters across the United States and internationally, has struck a deal to install MediaMation’s MX4D seats this summer in one of its theaters in Revere, just outside of Boston. The 70-seat screen at Showcase Cinema de Lux Revere is seen as a test case, with the possibility of more to come if it proves popular.

Though that theater won’t open until sometime this summer, Duncan Short, vice president of operations for National Amusements, is bullish about the new technology.

“With this addition, we look forward to taking the entertainment and excitement to a new level for our guests in Revere, as well as other locations in future,” Short said. “We really see the future in this technology to revolutionize the cinema industry and provide a sought-after new option for our most avid moviegoers.”

Still, a big question for theater owners is when or whether the big upfront investment in 4-D theater systems will pay off. Installing a 4-D theater the size of the one in Oxnard costs between $600,000 and $700,000, according to MediaMation, meaning purchasers will have to be patient for profits – even with the $8-a-ticket surcharge theaters tack on for the privilege.

Though MediaMation’s seats can only be found locally in Oxnard, there is also a 4-D movie theater in downtown Los Angeles at Regal Cinemas’ L.A. Live 14. But that one uses technology from South Korean conglomerate CJ Group, the global leader in movie motion seats.

Neither Regal Cinemas nor CJ responded to requests to comment for this article.

Though hopeful for their U.S. prospects, the Jameles know China presents the biggest opportunity for their company. MediaMation installed seats in a Nanning, China, theater in March, has a second opening soon and others in development.

“We manufacture in Torrance and export to China – how weird is that?” Dan Jamele said. “Now with the insane number of screens opening there, we aim to continue doing very well in that market.”

Insane, indeed: There are 13 cinema screens a day being opened in China, according to a 2014 report by Redwood Capital Group, putting the country on track to replace the United States as the world’s No. 1 film market by 2020.

As it tries to continue to grow in China, MediaMation will have to compete with the much larger CJ, which is also closer to all those screens being built.

“We are the little guy going up against giants,” Dan Jamele said. “We have about 12 to 15 percent of the global business and CJ Group has most of the rest.”

He declined to be specific about the private company’s financials, explaining he didn’t want the competition to find out those details, but said, “We are doing well for a private company that started out in a garage 24 years ago with 50 bucks to our name.”

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